The storms which produced the devastating tornado in Moore, Okla., blew over the Arkansas River Valley on Monday night, but residents in Russellville and surrounding areas were fortunate there was no serious damage reported locally.

An Entergy spokesman said more than 1,500 customers in Pope and Yell counties lost power overnight Monday. As of late Tuesday afternoon, about 316 customers were still without power.

Bruce Tucker, Entergy customer service manager for Pope and Yell counties, said he expected all Entergy customer to have power back on today.

There were 27 different cases of outages in the two counties caused by a number of broken poles and downed power lines, he said.

Russellville and Pope County officials were prepared for the weather event. Many were out early Tuesday to survey the results of high winds, lightning and heavy rain.

Streets inside city limits were fairly calm after the initial storm, according to Russellville Public Works Operations Manager Junior Marpel and Russellville Police Public Information Officer (PIO) Drew Latch.

“We stayed busy,” Marpel said. “It was mostly limbs we had to clear and we had a few drainage issues.

“There were several trees down that people called in for us to see about. There were more than a couple but everything was very manageable.”

Russellville police were at the ready for severe weather issues, Latch said.

“We always get a little busy when the storms roll in,” Latch said early Tuesday morning. “Right now it looks like there were a few large limbs in the roadways.

“We are getting ready for another big storm this afternoon.”

Other areas in Pope County also dodged damage that might have been caused by the strong winds. While there was some damage, none was considered severe, Pope County Sheriff Aaron DuVall said.

“Pope County dodged a bullet last night. Right now the county is in good shape,” DuVall said. “There were some trees in the road. Fire departments worked together to cut them up and remove them to get traffic flowing again.

“There were some downed trees on State Highway 124, south of Moreland. North of Hector, there were some large limbs in yards and a tree down on Reno Road and also on Pine Street between Hector and Appleton.”

There were large areas where power was lost, as well, DuVall said.

“Folks north and east of Atkins, and a great number of homes and businesses in Hector lost power,” he said. “But there was no real structural damage done anywhere.

Traveling on roads throughout the county will continue to be a concern during these heavy periods of rain, DuVall said.

“People need to be extremely careful when crossing creeks and any low lying areas that have water on them.”

In Yell County, there were similar reports of trees down, isolated power outages and minor damage to property across the county.